"Suze Orman, financial expert, says that bills should be split according to income; if one makes 1000 a month and the other 500; then the 1000 a month should pay a larger portion." Wow, did Suze Orman really say that? I usually agree with her advice, but speaking as a person who usually earned WAY more than my roommates this sounds completely unfair! Why should I have paid more than my semi-employed roommates? Did I breathe more air or use more toilet paper? I don't think so. Sheesh.

I'm all for education being a "full time job". But what happens when parents aren't capable (OR WILLING, like mine!) to make that happen? How do you imbue kids with the resources to "adapt, improvise, overcome"? Personally, I think that is the more important question. Mericifully, I learned from the 'rents to "live lean". I can "squeeze a dollar 'til it hollers" with the best of them. I think it's important to give allowances. My parents never did that. Aside from occasional baby-sitting gigs, in a very rural town there were no jobs available. If I wanted to go to the movies I had to ASK for the money and justify the popcorn. IT SUCKED. I determined that once I had a job I'd never "go beggin'" again. How my practical parents missed the importance of an allowance escapes to to this day. Work=gain. Pure and simple. I was never able to hold a job until I was 18 (there were no jobs in my town and my work/study job the first one I have had!). Use of the family car was purely discretionary. MY use of it was predicated on my GPA. Straight As earned a sizeable insurance break... and use of the car! I may not have paid for the insurance increase, but I damn sure EARNED the "break". A speeding ticket or ticket for a moving violation would have grounded me for between 60-90 days. A car was NOT a "god given right" when I began driving, it was a priviledge, subject to parental vagaries, lol. My parents did a CRUMMY job of imparting to me the most fundamental aspects of establishing a "budget". They did it wonderfully themselves and I was a good "study", but they failed woefully when it came to actually TALKING about money and its management. Talking about money was like talking about sex... everything was cloaked in time-honored "mystery". A total fu**kin' waste of time! A HS student who works should pay "room and board". Put the money in an account for them (identify this as "savings" while stressing the importance of rationing a paycheck!). Talking about money and how to use it for your greater benefit is crucially important. Money is a TOOL, something we all have to use. Learning how to use it effectively begins with "baby steps"... savings, budgets, forestalling immediate gratification. The sooner kids learn that it costs money to live, work, and how to provide for that, the better off they will be in long run. They need to be informed that you have to take care of the BASICS before you can begin to "blow money". Savings. Basic budget. Fun money. I'm 47, with no kids. I've paid every note I've assumed before the term was up. I've never bounced a check. I work in the "trades"; work ethic was part and parcel of the way I was raised. But it would have been a lot less stressful had I been given the basic outline before I was 18. For me, it was as though I was dropped into the "deep end"; needlessly frightening and stressful. Years later I've only just become comfortable with the notion that I can actually SPEND money on something other than basic necessities. You shouldn't have to be honest, hard-working, and in your 40s to feel comfortable with your finances. This feeling was an option for me 20+ yrs. ago, but I was too afraid of money then!

Neither my DD nor I could get it to download to My Documents, so she printed it out. Her printer prints front & back, which is handy.

Hi you guys who are putting your spare change, plus adding a bit, or whatever, into a piggy bank, a big jug, a serving dish, bedside table or some other receptacle ... ... that's the same as putting it under the mattress. Can't grow (each dollar, coin, etc., that is) by even a smidgeon. If you put it into a savings account, it earns at least a little - even though it's even less after income tax. But - when you put it into a bottle, jug, under the mattress, or wherever ... ... are you aware that part of the money that you put in evaporates, flies away, is stolen by the Grinch, or whatever? In any case - as far as you're concerned, it disappears. You tell me that I'm crazy - that you put in $2.00 once, $1.00 later, and $5.00 still later. That each dollar that you put in is still there (unless you have larcenous kids, visiting friends, whatever). Yes - each dollar that you put in is still there. But ... ... remember how much $10,000. would buy, 10 years ago? Will $10,000. buy the same amount now? As you know, it will not. Inflation erodes the value of every dollar that we own as a dollar, every year. If we own it as a house, its value may increase. If as a table, its value will decrease, especially just after we buy it - though if we wait long enough and it becomes an antique, it may be worth quite a bit. Even then, will it be greater value (even if the dollar amount is higher) than when we bought it? If we own it as a car - well, if you buy a new car, be sure to leave the window down with a few hundred dollars lying on the passenger seat to fly out the window, so to speak, as you drive home, for its value will have decreased by a couple of thousand, at least, during that drive. There are two rats that eat our cheese - the income tax people want to talk to us about every dollar of our annual income, annually. And they want part of it. If we invest in systems where the amount of the basic asset can't shrink, in almost every case, it can't grow, either. So - we must take part of the annual earnings to add to the basic asset itself, so that after ten years that $10,000. won't have lost some of its purchasing power. Hope you all have had a great week - and that the U.S.ers had a fine Thanksgiving. ole joyful